Matters of Concern

COLIN RIPLEY

Ryerson University

GEOFFREY THUN

University of Waterloo

KATHY VELIKOV

University of Waterloo

Once an architectural practice has divorced itself from the strictures of the normative service-to-

client driven professional model, the question of motivation becomes paramount. An architectural

practice may very well be alternative, making use of collaborative networks, leveraging institutional

affiliations, and finding unusual funding mechanisms—but to what end? Believing that the time

has come for a serious re-engagement on the part of architects with the critical forces that will

shape our human future, we have defined three Matters of Concern that both motivate our

practice and influence the methods by which we work: Future Ecologies, Situated Infrastructures,

and Emerging Inhabitations.

Matters of Concern

Over the past two decades, key external factors

have brought about a serious internal reconsidera-

tion of the roles of architects, the modes in which

they operate within the world, the tools and tech-

niques best suited to navigate these new condi-

tions, and the nature of appropriate pedagogic

tools and approaches that will cultivate the next

generation of professionals capable of engaging the

questions and challenges of their time.1 Simulta-

neously, with near-universal access to information,

widespread computational power, global commu-

nications infrastructures, complex collaborative

file-sharing and distributed just-in-time produc-

tion, the opportunities for an architectural practice

that positions itself outside of the service-to-

client model to not only survive but also produce

important work have perhaps never been

greater.

But now that we can all be alternative, so

what? Alternative to what end? Without the need

for clients, architects are free to choose their own

work. But what then are the situations, subjects or

problems that a practice pursues? Furthermore,

how will the practice choose to organize itself and

its work? What new collaborations, operational

practices, techniques and artifacts will be devel-

oped in pursuit of these questions and what will be

the resultant affective role of architecture?

Matters of ConcernTheorist and critic of science Bruno Latour has

recently proposed a methodology that we have

found useful in guiding an operative, critical

approach to practice. Latour proposes the notion of

‘‘matters of concern’’ in distinction to the more

common scientific category of ‘‘matters of fact.’’

While matters of fact, in our reading of Latour, are

developed without consideration of desire (moral,

ethical, or other), matters of concern embrace and

are centered in those desires. While matters of fact

exist without context, in an attempt to uncover the

indisputable, matters of concern gather context(s)

into themselves, disputing both the possibility and

the efficacy of indisputability. What results is an

approach that is constructive, rather than decon-

structive; one that assembles the subject as richly

diverse, historically situated, infinitely complex and

engaged with its own inherent contradictions and

controversies, a ‘‘multifarious inquiry launched with

the tools of anthropology, philosophy, metaphysics,

history, sociology to detect how many participants

are gathered in a thing to make it exist and maintain

existence.’’2

In order to pursue architectural works that

resonate beyond our discipline, our practice has

developed three inter-connected matters of con-

cern—Future Ecologies, Situated Infrastructures,

and Emerging Inhabitations—to structure both the

subjects on which and modes by which we operate.

These engage with the critical forces that will shape

our collective future, and seek to understand,

envision, and project that future. Our role, as

architects, becomes that of problem seekers, rather

than problem solvers.

The work is always addressed in its performa-

tive role in relation to the multiple situations of its

subject. Instead of starting with a problem to be

solved, we begin with the contextual situation,

using design as a way of exposing the conditions,

forces, and potentials that might become activated

within a proposition. Contexts are multiple and can

include, as a form of recherche concrete, our own

multiply networked relations to the mechanisms of

architectural production; projects arise literally from

the matters of concern and evolve through

Journal of Architectural Education,

pp. 6–14 ª 2009 ACSA

Matters of Concern 6

academic, industrial, and government agency

collaboration, finding new opportunities for

exploration, research, and innovation.

Future EcologiesFuture Ecologies mandates an increased global

awareness of ecological networks and of the

inherent participation of the built environment in

ecological processes. The ecological context in

which we operate goes beyond global warming to

entire planetary destabilization—ecological, social,

political—and the destruction, or at least massive

disruption, of ecosystems. What possible futures

attend these changes and how might design lever

these conditions of flux as new opportunities for

human engagement and occupation? Architects

who engage in alternative practices should offer not

only pragmatic solutions to our future but also

‘‘a dream of utopias.’’3

Buoyant Aquacology, a vision of the

interrelated urban, cultural, and ecological land-

scape of the Venice Lagoon situated in the future

of rising water levels, seeks to envision what the

role and possibility of large scale architectural,

landscape, and cultural projects will be in that new

reality.

The prospect of a permanently flooded Vene-

tian lagoon under as much as fourteen meters of

water (Figure 1) suggests the end to many existing

ecologies (both natural and cultural) but also the

1. Buoyant Aquacology, view towards the city of Venice. The city, now far below sea level, is surrounded by a prophylactic ring wall which is both a water barrier and a productive infrastructure. (Courtesy RVTR.)

2. Buoyant Aquacology, ecological and industrial network diagram for the reconfigured lagoon. (Courtesy RVTR.)

7 RIPLEY, THUN AND VELIKOV

emergence of others. In this near-future context,

a set of issues that includes the inevitable flooding

of the entire lagoon, the consequent failure of the

current tidal ecologies, an increased proliferation of

algae blooms, and the desire for a new tourist

industry are conflated to generate a matrix of

interrelated agents and activities to be accommo-

dated within the lagoon (Figure 2). In addition to

facilitating a new tourism industry, the new water-

scape will become a highly productive expanse,

generating new intensive sources of both food and

energy. A shifting matrix of floating energy barges

will produce algae to be farmed for hydrogen

energy production, as well as a food and mineral

source, while processing sewage from the remain-

ing urban concentrations in the lagoon and growing

new soil, used to extend new landforms. The com-

plex products of this agricology will be processed in

plants located within prophylactic barrier rings,

infrastructural sea walls constructed to protect the

most culturally significant of the current islands from

flooding. Other barges will support hydroponic

agriculture, fish hatcheries and solar collection cells.

The role of architecture here is the orchestration of

the operational and spatial distribution of these

systems, the performative organization of a pro-

jected future situation to meet projected future

need for food, energy, and commerce, as both con-

text and substance of a simultaneously utopic and

dystopic view of a flooded Venice.

Situated InfrastructuresSituated Infrastructures explores large-scale sys-

tems and networks of the urbanized world. Posi-

tioned within the lineage of speculative, visionary

urban proposals, this work investigates how exist-

ing infrastructural systems—designed for the 20th

century, currently on the edge of maximum

capacity and immanent collapse—might be modi-

fied and mobilized to address the needs of the 21st

century and beyond. How might the specific char-

acteristics of these systems that lie at the root of

their contemporary failure be reconsidered in terms

of their inherent potential for modification and

enhancement?

The Post-Carbon Highway is a regional urban

infrastructure design/research project that explores

the likely possibility that the depletion of carbon-

based fuels, rather than precipitating a decline in

mobility and a corresponding demise of the auto-

motive and transport industries, a collapse of global

trade networks and perhaps even a return to small-

scale recognizable and quantifiable city patterns,

could become instrumental in conceiving more

efficiently and intensely connected regional urban-

ities and infrastructures. The project synthesizes

current research from a range of disciplines and

existing data about changing populations, ecolo-

gies, technologies and economies within a specula-

tive design project and visualizes the potential

experience of mobility in a post-carbon world.4

Mappings of highway freight traffic in North

America and in the Great Lakes Megaregion dis-

close that, unlike the U.S. interstate system of

highly networked roadways, Highway 401 exists as

a single non-networked line cutting through

southern Ontario (Figure 4). This characteristic is

ultimately responsible for both the 401’s current

status as North America’s most densely traveled

highway,5 a key conduit for international trade, and

connector for 40% of the Canadian population, as

well as its imminent future of congestion and fail-

ure. Rather than proposing scenarios in which the

line is developed into a mesh by adding secondary

routes, we investigate instead what potentials exist

in a single, intensive, highly linear system: what can

a line do?

Architecture here looks to the capacity of the

line as a strategic asset, proposing its cross-

sectional densification to accommodate not simply

increased traffic, but also the multiple modes of

traffic types, velocities and energy sources in

a highly mobile post-carbon future (Figure 3). The

matrix of parallel, cooperative modes of mobility

will include high-speed rail, dedicated freight and

vehicle lanes configured in a ‘‘thick’’ system where

transport types are stacked and separated to maxi-

mize temporal efficiency, safety, and accessibility—

effectively increasing the bandwidth of the line. As

a result, the line will also become a robust infra-

structural backbone to foster the development of

3. Post-Carbon Highway. The thickened line. (Courtesy RVTR.)


4. Post-Carbon Highway. Maps showing highway freight traffic in the Great Lakes megaregion.

Sources: US Department of Transportation FHWA (2000 data) and Transport Canada. (Courtesy RVTR.)

5. Post-Carbon Highway. The multimodal transfer interchange will become the key node along the highway and the place where the highway and its

travelers will be able to interface with its dependent population concentrations. (Courtesy RVTR.)


a proximate urbanism.The multimodal transfer

interchange (Figure 5) will become the key urban

node along the highway and the place where the

highway and its travelers will be able to interface with

its dependent population concentrations. In the post-

carbon era of new fuels, a variety of refueling systems

will be provided at every service point, along with

freight distribution facilities, temporary accommo-

dations, and recreational opportunities. Meanwhile,

the project suggests that the entire predicted popu-

lation growth in Southern Ontario in the coming two

decades—four million people6—may be housed

proximate to the re-tooled Highway 401, rendering

the emergingGreat LakesMegaregion as a polycentric

linear city.

Emerging InhabitationsEmerging Inhabitations investigates how we might

frame new ways of living within our shifting con-

texts. The emerging idea of the domestic environ-

ment is less concerned with the object-ness of the

house and its furnishings than with what the

domicile and its components can do. Questions of

space and form are put aside to focus on the sen-

sorial, productive and emotional operations of

materials and elements in relation to, and as

extensions of, human occupants.

North House is a multi-tiered collaborative

design-research project (Figure 6) that aims to

develop building systems for sustainable living in

northern climates. This project is an extensive col-

laborative undertaking being developed between

faculty and students at the University of Waterloo,

6. North House. Project team constellation diagram. (Courtesy RVTR/Team North.)


Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Arts

and Technology, and Ryerson University. The pro-

ject moves beyond energy efficiency to consider

how the house fits into ecological cycles of pro-

duction, consumption and waste, leveraging sus-

tainable design for the provision of more: more

diverse and interconnected natural, social, and

economic networks; more energy-efficient building

technologies with more resilience and adaptability;

more opportunities for human health and vitality.

The project seeks to make use of highly engineered,

component-based manufacturing techniques linked

to local economies to explore means by which

a building design can be more responsive to the

changing needs of its users, and to develop new

reflexive and user-responsive building systems

appropriate to cold environments.

The team has developed a wood-framed

glazing system that can be a net energy producer

even at high latitudes with relatively scarce solar

resources. When paired with active shading sys-

tems, this development radically changes the way

we think about northern housing. The house no

longer needs to be a highly insulated and inter-

nalized box with minimal openings, but can instead

be opened up to the exterior landscape—a situa-

tion much more in keeping with the active lifestyles

of many northern residents. In parallel with the

development of advanced envelope components,

an Adaptive Living Interface System (ALIS) will

enable occupants to dynamically interact with

a complex set of building technologies through

haptic and digital media providing both feedback

and control regarding performance and atmosphere

while empowering the occupant as an agent of

behavioral change (Figures 7 and 8).

The ‘‘Latitude’’ housing system advances some

of the principles of North House and develops

energy efficient single-family dwellings fabricated

from light-gauge steel using component-based

manufacturing techniques. Latitude is not about

designing a single house but about developing entire

residential systems that include food, energy, waste

recycling, employment, and regional economies and

ecologies, all through the agency of re-considered

housing (Figure 9). Proposed initially for a site in

northern Russia, Latitude makes use of the glazing

systems developed by theNorth House team to offer

highly energy-efficient housing that is at the same

time filled with natural light and intimately con-

nected to the outdoors (Figure 10).This connection

7. North House. Adaptive Living Interface system diagram. (Courtesy RVTR/Team North.)8. North House. Responsive envelope studies. (Courtesy RVTR/Team North.)


9. Latitude. The Complex Ecology Matrix allows us to consider and act on impacts among various ecologies and at a range of scales; typology matrix. (Courtesy RVTR.)

10. Latitude. Sectional perspective. (Courtesy RVTR.) 11. Latitude. Top: L-House; Bottom: Loft House, showing food production. (Courtesy RVTR.)


12. Latitude. Component assembly diagram. (Courtesy RVTR.)

13. Latitude. GreenHouse, in winter. (Courtesy RVTR.)


allows the inhabitants of the house to not only take

advantage of the leisure opportunities afforded by

northern living, but also to take part in the local

tradition of independent food production, likely to

becomemore important as the climate warms up and

food transportation costs increase over the coming

decades (Figure 11).The modular construction

techniques used in Latitude will allow the buildings

to change and adapt as technologies or user needs

change; the buildings can easily grow in response to

changing family structures, or have newer, even

more efficient envelopes easily retrofitted in

response to further increases in energy costs and

available technologies (Figures 12 and 13).

ConclusionsThese projects—Buoyant Aquacology, Post-Carbon

Highway, and Latitude—are evidence of a devel-

oping operative practice in which matters of

concern condition the critical analysis of a given

situation through an understanding of its complex

interrelated variables. Architecture operates

within this matrix of relationships as an agent, an

organizer and orchestrator of seemingly

disparate components and activities. Discourse

is critically broadened from a focus on the

architectural object to consider the position

and agency of architecture within its wider

contexts.

Our ultimate desire is to mobilize the poten-

tial power of the university/practice relationship

and leverage its productive exchanges for the

benefit of both institutions and of society at large.

As both architectural educators and practitioners,

we believe that this broader engagement of

architectural discourse is crucial as we—both as

a profession and as a species—head into very

uncertain times. It is important to all of us that

architecture make use of its ability to visualize

not just future architectures, but future

worlds.

Notes

1. See for example Winy Maas, ‘‘Architecture Is a Device,’’ In MVRDV:

KM3—Excursions on Capacities (Rotterdam: MVRDV and Barcelona:

ACTAR, 2004).

2. Bruno Latour, ‘‘Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam? From Matters of

Fact to Matters of Concern,’’ in Critical Inquiry (Winter, 2004), p. 246.

3. Roemer van Toorn, ‘‘No More Dreams?’’ Harvard Design Magazine,

no. 21 (Fall 2004/Winter 2005): 30.

4. For more on this project see John Knechtel, ed., Fuel (Cambridge: MIT

Press, 2008).

5. Brian Gray, ‘‘GTA Economy Dinged by Every Crash on the 401,’’ The

Toronto Sun, April 10, 2008.

6. Ontario Ministry of Infrastructure Renewal, Places to Grow: Growth

Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe. http://www.placestogrow.ca,

2006 (accessed February 24, 2008).


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Matters of Concern

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